Their work together hits an irresistible sweet spot between old-school r&b and punky ramalama. [Feb 2010, p. 101]

Minor key, acoustic introspection done so beautifully it's as if they're singing to one another in the dustlight of a pub backroom. [Aug 2017, p.97]

Evern more so than on Silence Is Sexy... a few telling elements are deployed to dramatic effect here. [Feb 2004, p.98]

Wild Beasts' stripped down songs have developed incrementally into a more electronic direction and these finely detailed arrangements feature twitchy kit and synthetic drums, sequencers, abstract sonics, '80s keyboard stabs and guitars occasionally let off the leash. [Sep 2016, p.95]

So many ideas, so much beauty and a fitting memento of Trish Keenan's poetic songwriting and inimitable, unimpeachable voice. [May 2024, p.100]

Witty and moving, somewhere an indie movie needs this as a soundtrack. [Dec 2021, p.85]

In a life of perpetual motion, Perils From The Sea provides a vital forward thrust. [Jul 2013, p.86]

The best of the original bunch is still the frantic rockabilly charge Wearing And Tearing from the Polar Studio sessions.... What gives this new Coda its edge are versions of Four Sticks and Friends recorded in 1972 by Page and Plant in Bombay with local musicians who'd never heard a Led Zeppelin song before. [Sep 2015, p.98]

If Love And Fortune covers messy terrain, the 22-year-old traverses it with cool panache, plus shades of Gen-X touchstone Juliana Hatfield and Eleanor Friedberger's glistening Rebound. [Dec 2025, p.84]

Sound Mirror is far more than an exercise of indulgence. [Jul 2014, p.94]

It lacks the crisp modernity of old but it's knee-deep in lush curvature and angular salvos, and new favourites keep emerging. [Sep 2012, p.94]

[Evil Spirits] was a curiously muted affair. ... Darkadelic does much to address that imbalance with the Cap back to showboating magnificently on Bad Weather Girl and Girl I'll Stop At Nothing and adding vibrant, shimmering psych textures throughout. [Jun 2023, p.84]

This excellent new record encapsulates Pine's eclecticism with its amalgam of cool jazz and sultry R&B flavours. [Nov 2017, p.101]

It’s their most expansive LP so far. [Nov 2024, p.92]

The Kills sound and feel like no other band--nocturnal, wayout, untouchable. [Apr 2008, p.100]

This album comes with a strong sense of fantasy: authors can be rock stars, “unknowns” can become known and Stevie Wonder is right over there. What is solid, however, is Ronson’s ability to throw a swell party.

The result successfully veers from radio-friendly gems Everyday Magic and Time Waited (built around a tumbling piano sample from pedal steel player Buddy Emmons’ 1969 LP Emmons Guitar Inc) to Free-styled riffer Squid Ink and bluesy closer River Road. [Apr 2025, p.78]

Seen from 2022, Stereolab's sheer breadth of endeavour here can justly be vaunted as heroic. [Oct 2022, p.100]

[Wayne Coyne's] prolix tendencies have been stripped down into sombre considerations of lust, mortality and universal chaos. [May 2013, p.87]

Glasgow Eyes' liberal use of electronics is a renewing force, and a kind of homecoming too. .... Glasgow Eyes is a positive twist in the sage of these negaholics synonymous. [Apr 2024, p.86]

Every Valley is timely and useful. [Aug 2017, p.89]

In this 30-track collection marks Snow Patrol as a band backed with some serious songwriting heft.

Heavyweight and sodden like the starry mills of Satan. [May 2012, p. 103]

His best (if worst-titled) work so far. Sometimes JPEGRAW's 12 tracks feel like they're ticking boxes: a flurry of lounge piano blues here, a blast of jazz trumpet there... But there's a clarity to the writing, with his vaulting ambition accompanied by strong hooks and an even stronger pop sensibility. [Apr 2024, p.84]

There’s something about this mix of scrawling guitars, frank lyricism and brazen dub that is a joyfully empowering inversion of the girl group sound. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Lloyd is joined by pianist Jason Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell, who prove highly empathetic collaborators, creating delicately nuanced backdrops that are conductive to the saxophonist's poetic storytelling. [Nov 2025, p.82]

Sometimes, the abiding mood is one of grand interstellar drift, an ancient exhausted spaceship cruising through deep space, leaving rippling waves of a strange blank intensity in its wake. [Jul 2014, p.95]

It's a technical leap forward...but she wears this transformation easily. [Oct 2011, p.101]